I didn't sleep well last night, for various reasons. Sitting here at my desk at work, my chin on my hand, I dozed off briefly.

I woke with a start in this familiar place, too warm, too dry, too professional. I woke and for a moment it seemed that the past five days had been a dream, one of those sharp, endless dreams that seem to spiral out from the fractions of a second your eyes close.

Then - oh, then... a reversal of the terrible pain of waking and remembering that the world is not what you dreamed: I woke and remembered that it wasn't a dream. That against all odds, he is here, and he will be well.

Like a soap bubble or a butterfly in the hand, I feel reluctant to even breathe too hard, lest I blow it away. Hope is such a fragile thing, but so incredibly strong - as he says, a glass cannon, breakable but capable too of destroying walls and obstacles with the merest touch.

I am very happy right now, best beloveds... I hope you are too.

Labels: Aaron, Dreams, Happy, Hope

Now the radio stutters, snaps to life
Some sour song that sets it right.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to realize that the overriding emotional tone of my life over the past few years has been "apocalyptically joyful". I dream of the end of the world as we know it, best beloveds, and it only makes me smile. This is no goth bullshit here... this is a sense, shared by Brian, that what people like us really need in order to show our true worth and strength is a big motherfucking catastrophe that would destroy the structure of civilization. Zombies, meteors, ravening hordes of Scientologists... what have you, so long as we can pile into a pick-up truck, fight the beasts off with sledgehammers and trade gas for canned goods as our new form of exchange.

When London falls, he'd like to call
But the stars collide.
They're beautiful and much maligned
In a universe where you see the worst
And it's up to you to fix it.

I have the sense from time to time that I'm preparing for this to happen, even if it never does. I see myself going through life, reaching out to minds and hearts worth saving, gathering them close and girding them with weapons and tools, both mental and physical, for the struggle ahead. Something Procell said a long time ago is my guiding principle in this. "There is something here that I will not take away from the world just yet." I act to preserve and protect people because if I had to wake up in the morning to a world that did not contain them and the qualities they posses, I would not want to live in it. Sometimes this world is full of knives for people like those I love. How could I do other than offer a titanium umbrella?

It's easy to dismiss the "what's it all about" crowd
There is no doubt:
It's this, here, now.

Every day I try to convey to Aaron all the beauty I see in him and all the possibility there is for him. I am distressed to discover that his capacity even to imagine joy in his life is stunted, shrunken by circumstance like a plant in a pot too small for it to grow. There is so much more in the world than he can even begin to comprehend, but what I'm most grateful for is that somehow, by some insane faith or hope in him that perhaps he doesn't even quite know is there, he's willing to believe in my belief enough to change his life. I will prove his faith well-founded, by god, or I'm not half the person I think I am.

Now the universe left you for a runner's lap
It feels like home when it comes crashing back
And it makes you laugh, and it makes you cry
When London falls and you're still alive.

For the past two nights I've dreamed about Julia. In the first dream, yesterday morning, she was about five. Ladonda swam in a pool, got out bedraggled and wet, and turned into Julia who was also soaked. I took her hand and dried her and dressed her warm, and we talked about how you can love someone without liking all the things they do. This morning she came again, younger, about two, not out of diapers yet. The city was afire and filled with smoke and dust, and buildings were falling in a beautiful golden afternoon light, and someone brought my baby to me and she was laughing, talking about drawing a picture, completely unafraid. And I carried her through a tunnel with my boys at my side and we were alive and happy. She tangled her hands in my hair and I forgot that the world was ending.

The radio stutters, it makes you laugh
In the aftermath
Open up your eyes!
You're so alive!

Brendon's eyes are unbelievably beautiful, and sometimes it seems as if all of the peace and slowly-growing joy in my life flows out from that source, from his quiet adoration, from his excitement and his animated hands, from his laughter and his kiss. He fulfills every promise he ever made me, about exploration and discovery, about paradise and paradigm shifts, every time he whispers in my ear. He fills me with light.

All of us, together, laughing as the city comes down. We're so alive.

Labels: Aaron, Apocalypse, Brendon, Dreams, Hope, Julia